Middlewich Boat Festival is latest cancellation

MIDDLEWICH Boat Festival has been cancelled for the second time due to coronavirus restrictions.

The combined folk and boat festival is an important event  in the town, but again the pandemic has taken its toll making it the second year it has been cancelled.

Three decades

This year the eighties stars Toyah and China Crisis were due to headline the 30th anniversary celebrations from 17th to 21st June in a proposed landmark event hailed the 'best ever' to mark three decades of community festivals.

But the Town Council fears social distancing regulations and the inevitable drop in capacity means this year's event is no longer financially viable, with Town Council Clerk, Lisa Benskin, explaining:

"It is a source of sadness for the whole council to cancel the Folk and Boat Festival for a second year.

"However, given the likely ongoing restrictions and the important need to prioritise the use of Victoria Hall for vaccinations above all else, it was a necessary decision to take."

Looked at postponing

The Town Council initially looked at postponing the event until later in the year, but in the light of potential social distancing still in place and no certainty that festivals or events can go ahead, they regrettably decided to cancel.

The festival relies on numbers to enable the festival to break even or to make a small profit, and any restrictions in place would cause a huge drop in the attendance leaving the council with a massive liability.

The council is also considering the status of the vaccination centre. The Smash programme at our Civic Hall has so far vaccinated over 10,000 people but has a long way to go before the population of Middlewich and the surrounding area is fully vaccinated.

The car park too is exclusively reserved for the vaccination clinic on vaccination days. As a result, Market Field is unavailable until the vaccination centre is decommissioned.